


First Meeting

by Berty



Category: Slings & Arrows
Genre: Canon - TV, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:26:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berty/pseuds/Berty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Every time, just like the first time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	First Meeting

He watches from the wings.

The hairs on Geoffrey's arms prickle and rise beneath his shirtsleeves. The smell of fear and exhilaration and stage make-up is a familiar thrill, both dreaded and welcome. The lights change, casting the set into a ruddy glow that emphasises the closeness of its proportions, shrinking the world down to the actor, turning slowly to deliver the lines.

**Ecstasy!  
My pulse, as yours, doth temperately keep time,  
And makes as healthful music: it is not madness  
That I have utter'd: bring me to the test,  
And I the matter will re-word; which madness  
Would gambol from.**

Just like the first time. Geoffrey can't remember how old he'd been. Fourteen? Thirteen? Copying passages of Shakespeare in a deserted classroom - a task set for its tediousness and futility, probably a punishment for some forgotten misdemeanour.

And to this day he has no idea what it was that happened. Some trick of the light. Some connection deep in his mind that completed a pathway. A magical synergy between printed page and real world. He just doesn't know, but suddenly the words… _the words_… had been right there _in his head_, their sense made plain. Like Athena springing fully formed from her father's brow. No longer black text on white sheet, elusive and clouded, to be battled with and fought into a submission of meaningfulness, but shining, perfect expressions of raw emotion, pathos, comedy, hubris, tragedy…

_Humanity_.

In all its terrible, wonderful, supremely fallible beauty.

**Mother, for love of grace,  
Lay not that mattering unction to your soul,  
That not your trespass, but my madness speaks:  
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place,  
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,  
Infects unseen. **

Every time, just like the first time. Geoffrey feels the words like a tide of blood beneath his skin, reaching every part, every cell of his being until they are one and the same - indiscernible, the one from the other.

**Confess yourself to heaven;  
Repent what's past; avoid what is to come;  
And do not spread the compost on the weeds,  
To make them ranker.**

These words - they are his heartbeat. They are his bones, immutable and strong. They are his lungs filling and emptying. They are his skin registering the slightest touch. They are his sanity.

**Forgive me this my virtue;  
For in the fatness of these pursy times  
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,  
Yea, curb and woo for leave to do him good.**

Geoffrey raises his eyes, even now in the throes of remembrance watching for the next cue. And she is there, her back to the audience.

Ellen.

The only other thing he cannot truly live without.

Her mouth is curved in the smallest of smiles. She sees him. She understands.

She steps into her light and turns.

**O Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.**

Geoffrey watches from the wings - and the words will not release him until the last one is said and the players have all gone. Then he will be free again.

For a while.

Fin


End file.
